Collections Manager Kimball L. Garrett is responsible for the care and use of the ornithological collections, additions of specimens to the collections, and the databases associated with the collections.Garrett joined the Natural History Museum staff in March 1982.A lifelong California resident, he grew up in Hollywood, received his undergraduate education in Zoology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and University of California, Berkeley, and did graduate work in Ornithology at UCLA.

An avid birdwatcher since childhood, Garrett has been involved in documenting the avifauna of Los Angeles County and adjacent regions for over forty years.
Since the early 1990s he has monitored nonnative, naturalized bird species in California, including 10 plus species of parrots, various doves, and several seed-eating passerines including Nutmeg Mannikins and Orange Bishops; for more information on naturalized parrots, see our Resources page.
He was lead author for two species monographs in the authoratative Birds of North America series, those for the Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis) and the White-headed Woodpecker (Picoides albolarvatus).

Garrett's interest in field identification problems has extended recently to North American wood-warblers (Dunn, J. L. and K. L. Garrett.

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Garrett is past president of Western Field Ornithologists (WFO) and has put in 24 years of service on the WFO's California Bird Records Committee ; he has also served on the American Birding Association's Checklist Committee.

Kimball Garrett, ornithology collections manager at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, said hes not optimistic about the future.
Although he pointed to some successes with the banning of DDT and the return of the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon since 1970, he cant rejoice.

Too many wetlands, bird habitats and nesting grounds are disappearing.
Too many species are never coming back.

With global populations rising along with carbon emissions, only a revolutionary turn in western lifestyles can brighten the planets fate, Garrett said.

Politicians and their economies based on growth in population, in consumption, and in financial wealth essentially sealed our doom over those intervening decades (since the first Earth Day), he said.

I am completely pessimistic about the state of our relationship to the Earth unless we can immediately switch directions and massively reduce our population and our ecological footprint, Garrett said in an emailed reply to questions.